


Wear Your Medals With Pride

by flawedamythyst



Series: Winterhawk Tumblr ficlets [11]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Massage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 20:26:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15445152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: There's no way Bucky can say no to a massage from Clint, even if it makes keeping his crush a secret so much harder.





	Wear Your Medals With Pride

Bucky was so used to the constant bone-deep ache in his shoulder and neck that he barely noticed it any more so when Clint brought it up, it took him by surprise.

“Is it just the muscles aching, or does the connection to your body hurt?”

Bucky stared at him and Clint shrugged one shoulder. “Sorry, just, the later in the day it gets, the stiffer you hold yourself.”

Bucky put a hand on his shoulder, feeling the hard line of the metal connecting to his flesh underneath his t-shirt. “It’s just the muscles,” he said. “I think it’s the weight pulling on it.”

Clint nodded. “You should talk to Tony, he could probably re-engineer it to be lighter.”

Bucky couldn’t keep his grimace at that idea off his face and Clint snorted a laugh.

“Yeah, okay, maybe you guys aren’t there yet.”

Bucky forced his shoulders to relax, leaning back into the couch. “It’s fine,” he said.

“Bullshit,” said Clint. “If you don’t want to talk to Tony, how about I give you a massage?”

Bucky twitched with surprise, which pulled on one of his aching muscles and made him wince.

“Okay, yeah, we’re doing this,” said Clint, getting up and gesturing at the couch. “C’mon, shirt off and spread out, I’ll find some massage oil.”

“I’m fine,” said Bucky, because there was no way in hell he could take his shirt off and let Clint slide his hands all over him without giving away his crush.

“You’re not fine,” said Clint. “Let me help.” He held up his hands and waggled his fingers. “Archery gives me strong fingers, you know. I’m great at massages. Ask Nat if you don’t trust me.”

That didn’t help at all, and actually spawned a couple of fantasies that Bucky shelved to think about later tonight, when he was alone in bed. “I’m fine,” he insisted. “It’s not like I haven’t spent decades adjusting to the weight of it.”

Clint‘s face softened into a wide-eyed look of sympathy that Bucky could barely stand to look at. “You don’t have to just put up with it,” he said. “You’re not with those assholes any more, you can let yourself have some comforts.”

Fuck, there was no way Bucky could say no to that expression. He let out a sigh. “Jesus, fine,” he muttered. “If you insist.”

“I very much do,” said Clint. He waved at the couch again. “Shirt off, lay down, I’ll be right back.”

He darted off, leaving Bucky to pull his shirt off, ignoring the ache in his shoulder as he pulled it over his head. He glanced down at himself and scowled at the mess of scars. Fuck, if he did give away his crush, there was no way Clint was going to do anything other than let him down gently when faced with the ruin of Bucky’s body.

He’d just have to do his damndest to hide it. Being let down gently by Clint would be excruciating.

By the time Clint came back, Bucky had got himself laid down on his stomach, feeling weirdly exposed. Clint grinned at him and held up a small bottle. “I knew Nat would have some.”

“Did you ask, or is she going to storm in and garrotte you for stealing it?” asked Bucky.

Clint shrugged. “I’ll put it back later.”

Right, so not only was Bucky about to run the risk of ruining everything with one of his tiny handful of friends by revealing his inappropriate crush, he was probably also about to watch him get murdered by a team-mate. He sighed. “I’m not protecting you from her.”

“You won’t need to,” said Clint, with far more confidence than was justified. He paused next to the sofa for a moment, eyeing Bucky’s position in a way that made Bucky’s skin creep with self-consciousness. “I guess the best way to do this is…” he started, then swung a leg over Bucky, straddling his hips and sitting back to rest on his thighs.

Oh God, this was going to kill Bucky.

“Good thing Tony sprung for the really massive sofas, right?” said Clint, cheerfully. “Okay, just relax and let me sort you out, okay? Oh, and let me know if I hit any bad spots.”

“Sure thing,” said Bucky, as evenly as he could while his brain was filling up with a heady mixture of panic and anticipation. Oh god, this was going to end so badly, but it was going to be so good before that. He’d spent far longer than he wanted to admit to looking at Clint’s hands, thinking about how they would feel running over his body, and he was actually going to get that. At least for as long as it took for Clint to realise this was a terrible idea and run off, but Bucky wasn’t thinking about that right now.

Clint leaned forward to set his palms flat against Bucky’s shoulder blades, circling up over his back and then down to his sides. Bucky let out a long, slow breath. Oh god, they felt even better than he’d imagined, broad and warm, with rough calluses brushing over his skin.

“Yeah, just let it out,” said Clint quietly. Bucky closed his eyes so that he could savour the feeling better.

Clint ran his hands over Bucky’s back a few times, then shifted back to grab the massage oil. “I’ll try and warm this up a bit, but apologies if it’s a bit cold,” he said.

“I think I can cope,” said Bucky, trying to keep to their usual banter. He didn’t quite manage to pull it off when his voice was already sounding rough-edged.

“Right,” said Clint, sounding amused, then his weight shifted on Bucky’s legs again and he was rubbing oil-slicked hands across Bucky’s skin, digging into the muscles and letting out tension that Bucky had been holding since, well, probably since the thirties, if he was being honest.

Clint hadn’t been lying about being good at massages. His fingers dug in with just the right amount of strength to all the right spots, slowly working Bucky over until he’d lost all track of how much time had passed. It was all Bucky could do keep his breathing slow and even, and not give away just how incredible it felt as Clint slowly rubbed away everything bad that had ever happened to him, until he was boneless and floating in a warm haze of pure bliss.

“Okay,” said Clint, very quietly, as he rubbed both hands up either side of Bucky’s spine, and then circled them around to stroke back down Bucky’s sides. “I’m going to focus on your shoulder now. Let me know if anything feels wrong, I haven’t exactly studied the anatomy of how it’s all attached.”

Bucky made a noise of agreement that came out as more of a sleepy murmur, and he heard Clint huff an amused breath. “Man, if I’d known this was the way to get you to finally relax, I’da done it months ago.”

_Yes, please,_ thought Bucky, which didn’t even make sense but his thoughts all felt sluggish, like they were moving through syrup, so he didn’t bother trying to come up with something else. Pretty much anything from Clint and his magic, perfect hands was a ‘yes please’ right now, anyway.

Clint went slowly over his shoulder to start with, obviously feeling out exactly where the metal ended and how it was attached. It was enough to make Bucky start to come back to himself, especially when he realised that Clint was stroking right over his scars, probably thinking about how ugly they were.

“No, no, don’t tense up,” said Clint, taking one hand away to smooth over Bucky’s back like he was calming a nervous horse. “Nothing to worry about, I promise. I’m just going to relax it all a bit, okay?”

“Okay,” managed Bucky.

Clint ran his hands back over his shoulder and then, apparently confident about it now, starting to dig in, pressing his calluses against the knots in Bucky’s muscles.

Bucky couldn’t help letting out a moan of pleasure as the tension he’d got so used to started to break apart. Clint sucked in a quick breath but didn’t mock him for it, so Bucky didn’t bother trying to hold in the next one as Clint’s fingers eased away a knot that loosened up the whole area.

Man, he hoped no one walked in on this.

As Clint worked, it actually began to feel like Bucky’s arm was getting lighter. Fuck, maybe he should try talking to Tony. It wasn’t as if he could rely on Clint wanting to do this for him every day.

Bucky really, really wanted Clint to do this for him every day. He wanted to feel his calluses stroking over his skin, over his scars, wanted to have this level of attention from him and know that Clint thought Bucky’s comfort was worth the time and effort he was putting in right now.

“How’s that?” asked Clint, and he was still using that quiet, soft tone that sounded far too much like a bedroom voice for Bucky to be able to cope.

“It’s good,” he slurred out, blinking his eyes open as Clint’s hands stopped moving, just resting against his shoulders.

“I told you I had magic fingers,” said Clint, smugly.

“I can think of some other ways you coulda touched me to prove that,” said Bucky, because he was an idiot who had just had his brain-mouth filter relaxed right out of him.

Luckily, Clint just laughed that off. “Yeah, this ain’t the kinda massage that comes with a happy ending, sorry, dude.”

He sat back on Bucky’s legs, hands resting for a moment on Bucky’s waist, then swung off him to stand back up. Bucky shifted his head the inch needed to look up at him, which felt like an unbelievable effort. Clint was looking down at him with a tiny, satisfied smile he didn’t think he’d ever seen before, at least not aimed at a person rather than an arrow.

“Thanks,” said Bucky, because his brain wasn’t really firing enough cylinders to manage a proper conversation when all he could feel was puddled bliss mixed with a swell of gratitude.

“No problem,” said Clint. “It really wasn’t a hardship, you know. I love giving massages.”

Bucky managed a snort. “Probably more on people that aren’t all scarred to fuck,” he said and, yep, he needed to get control of his tongue back before this conversation went on much longer.

Clint looked completely taken aback, and then his eyes darted to Bucky’s shoulder again, which made him twitch with self-consciousness. “Seriously?” he said. “C’mon, you’ve got to know that doesn’t make a damn bit of difference. All scars do is add texture.” He held his fingers up again. “Like my calluses. Something to prove you went out into the world and did something.”

Bucky snorted, turning slightly onto his side. “I went out into the world and got torn apart.”

“And you survived,” said Clint. “Look at how much you survived, fuck, Bucky. You should wear those scars like goddamn medals.”

There was a fervent note in his voice that Bucky didn’t know how to react to. Was that really how Clint saw him?

Clint cleared his throat and looked away, breaking a stare that Bucky hadn’t realised had gone on too long. “Sorry, that was probably a bit much. I just don’t like hearing you talk that way about yourself. You’re a survivor, you should know how incredible that is.”

Bucky raised a hand to curl around his shoulder, rubbing over the join between metal and flesh. “Don’t know that anyone else would agree.”

“Steve would,” said Clint immediately, and Bucky rolled his eyes, because Steve had blinkered vision when it came to him. “Besides,” added Clint, “fuck everyone else.”

Bucky snorted. “Because yours is the only opinion that matters?”

“Well, yeah, obviously,” said Clint. “But actually, I meant that _yours_ is the only opinion that matters. They’re your scars.”

Bucky ran his hand over them again, then pulled it away, leaving them on display. Clint grinned at him and he couldn’t help grinning back, because it felt like Clint’s words had unravelled a knot inside him in the same way that his fingers had unravelled the knots in Bucky’s muscles.

“You’re a pretty damn good friend,” he said. “I mean, you hide it well, but you are.”

Clint nodded firmly and held a finger up. “And that’s what you need to tell Natasha when she realises that I used up all of her massage oil.”

Bucky felt his eyes widen. “You finished it?”

Clint gave a shrug, one hand going up to scratch at the back of his neck before he realised it was covered in oil and lowered it again. “I meant to stop before I ran out, but you were so damn relaxed, I didn’t want to ruin the moment.”

“She’s going to kill you.”

“Yeah,” agreed Clint, and then shrugged. “Worth it.”

A swell of affection rose up in Bucky. Aw man, this wasn’t just a crush. He was halfway to falling in love with the guy.

Clint cleared his throat and went to put his hands in his pockets before remembering -again- that they were covered in oil. “Okay, I’m gonna wash my hands,” he said. “You should probably shower the oil off, because that shit gets everywhere.”

Bucky stretched lazily, still feeling unbelievably mellow from the massage. “You gonna help me out with that as well?” he asked, without thinking about it.

Clint froze up, mouth falling open with surprise, and Bucky realised his mistake too late. Shit he’d been doing so well at keeping this hidden, how the hell did he slip up that easily?

Clint was still staring. Bucky shifted to sit up, trying to work out if there was any way of playing it off as a joke, but the silence had already gone on too long for that.

“Do you really want that?” asked Clint in a dead serious voice. “Bucky, be honest. I can walk out of here and wash my hands and we’ll never mention it again, but…” He took a deep breath, “I’d rather things went the other way.”

Bucky was the one staring now. Clint actually wanted this? Wanted Bucky? Even after seeing his scars up close and personal? He remembered how Clint had sounded when he’d said _You should wear those scars like goddamn medals_ and took in a deep breath. “My shower’s definitely big enough for two,” he offered.

Clint took a step forward to drop to his knees in front of Bucky, gripping his arms with his hands without giving a damn that he was getting oil everywhere. “Seriously?” he asked, gaze darting between Bucky’s eyes as if looking for a lie.

As if Bucky could ever lie about this. He tipped forward and pressed an achingly careful kiss to Clint’s lips, feeling like he was holding something perfect and delicate in his hands. “Seriously.”

“Oh, thank fuck,” said Clint, and tipped forward to wrap his arms around Bucky’s shoulders, pulling him close and kissing him with pent-up passion. The calluses on his fingers skidded over Bucky’s scars, the slick of oil making them slide together, and Bucky thought that he’d never felt anything better.


End file.
